


Graphite

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 18:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17606597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "What if the last light wasn’t Jamie? I mean, there were two children in that house, and there wasn’t anything that indicated that a person knows specifically which light is which. Just that it’s a child, and where they are. Jack went to Jamie because that’s the one who had been doing all the insisting, and who had seen the Guardians that night; he found him having a crisis of faith and sought to save it. But we don’t see the globe again before the other lights are restored, do we? Sophie had her own adventure with the Eater Bunny and everyone, and is awfully young to be convinced when people say she was just dreaming. And just because she’s asleep at the time doesn’t mean her belief just stops.So how about if someone–Jamie, a Guardian, anyone at all–over time begins to wonder if Sophie wasn’t that last light shining on the globe. Maybe she says or does something, or just as she grows up she holds on to her faith in times when even Jamie lets it go, maybe even pulls her brother back into believing every time he falters."Sophie begins to wonder what it means to believe in the Guardians. Jamie begins to realize that he might not be as special as he always thought.





	Graphite

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 10/19/2013.

“Do you believe in the Guardians?” Sophie asks Jamie one afternoon as they work on their homework at the kitchen table.  
  
“Of course.” Jamie isn’t embarrassed to own up to it, even at fifteen. And surely that’s the answer Sophie needs right now. She’s almost eleven, and most kids have lost their belief by that age. It seems a bit strange to him, though, that she has to ask. “How could I not? Jack visited just last week. He was with us when we went sledding.”  
  
“Yeah…but…” Sophie frowns. “When we’re away from grown-ups, like we were then, Jack is just…there. He flies down, or walks out of the woods, like anyone. North’s like that too. Tooth’s different, because she doesn’t visit as much. And Bunny’s different because he’s a bunny.”  
  
Jamie pushes his algebra aside. “Different how?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Sophie pushes her pencil eraser against her cheek, forcing her face into a strangely grotesque impression. “I’m thinking about it.” She stares out the window over the sink for a full minute while Jamie waits in silence. When she puts her pencil down, a red mark remains on her cheek. “Well, I don’t believe in you, right? Or mom, or my teachers, or my friends. I see them all the time. I see you all the time. I know you’re there.”  
  
“Well, that’s definitely different,” Jamie says. “People aren’t like Guardians. If we didn’t believe in them, we wouldn’t be able to see them at all. So of course we believe in them.”  
  
“When you first met Jack, you believed in him first, and then you saw him.” She pokes at the center of her hand with the point of her pencil, leaving a gray dot.  
  
“Sophie, stop doing that.” Jamie grabs her hand and rubs away the graphite.  
  
She makes a face at him and pulls her hand away. “I’m just wondering…I could have been the one that still believed, then, couldn’t I? You told me you had dropped the toy bunny off the bed. So for just a little while…”  
  
“But I was the one who saw them.”  
  
“And I was the one who had grass stains from the Warren all over my pjs.”  
  
Jamie sets his notebook paper in perfect parallel to his book. “But Jack’s always said…”  
  
Sophie shrugs. “Jack always liked you better.”  
  
Another long pause.  
  
“Why didn’t you mention Sandy with the other Guardians?” Jamie asks. “Is it because he shows up so rarely?”  
  
Sophie tilts her head. “What do you mean? He’s here every night.”  
  
“You see him?”  
  
“No. But I dream, don’t I? I have good dreams…mostly. Sometimes bad ones. So I believe in Sandy. And Pitch, too. And no, I haven’t seen him. I don’t know if I ever really did. Even that Easter—well, I don’t remember, I was so little.” She prods her other palm with her pencil. “I just think…you believe, and then you see, but after you see, you know. And then you don’t believe anymore.”  
  
“But then why…why would they still visit us?”  
  
“They visit you because you’re their friend,” Sophie says. “You’re not the Last Light anymore.”  
  
“What if I never was?” Jamie asks, his voice hollow.  
  
“Believe what you want,” Sophie says, tucking hair golden as dreamsand behind her ears.


End file.
